


moebius ring

by aetherae



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, alt milla deserves way much more than what canon gave to her 2k18, never mind that i started this in 2015, this is just my sorry attempt at giving more to her
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 05:07:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13896915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aetherae/pseuds/aetherae
Summary: Milla lives. Not as Milla Maxwell, and not as the former Lord of Spirits, but as herself.





	moebius ring

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on tumblr december 2015. "kaye tox2 was how long ago how can you still be salty about it" LISTEN, MY SALT NEVER DIES, IT IS ETERNAL AND SELF-PERPETUATING. anyways-- i originally meant to just post the whole thing once i was done, but honestly i’m just lazy and impatient and what to share what i have already LOL. i like it a lot at least, hopefully someone else will enjoy it at least somewhat as much.

When Milla opens her eyes, she sees the sky. A rich, blue sky, the rolling clouds crossing it lazily. It’s a beauty unlike anything she’s ever seen.

And it almost scares her.

She doesn’t know how she opened her eyes in the first place.

The grass beneath her—soft and fresh between her fingers, the smell of deep, pure earth—stretches as far as the eye can see. When she sits up, she suspects it stretches much further than that; perhaps to the end of this land, this place, wherever or whatever it is. The bright, clear sunlight almost makes it hard to see, but Milla is no fool. This land is neither of Rieze Maxia nor Elympios. It isn’t of the human world at all.

“You’re awake.”

Milla stills. The voice is familiar yet not, like she should already know it but couldn’t. That’s when she realizes it—her own voice. When she turns around, it is Milla Maxwell that she faces.

“You!” She jumps to her feet, sees the familiar Four standing behind the Lord of Spirits. Somehow, she suspects that Muzet must not be far off either. “What— But— _How_?”

“You could say that I pulled a few strings,” the Great Spirit says nonchalantly, as if revival of the dead, resurrection of the _soul_ was an everyday occurrence. She’s not sure if that’s amazing or insulting.

“Let me rephrase that: you _brought me back to life_. Why?”

It’s here that Milla Maxwell pauses, almost hesitant. From the picture her human companions painted, she doesn’t think it fits. “It didn’t seem fair to me.”

“ _Fair_?” Her hands ball into fists by her sides. “Out of all the thousands—maybe millions—of humans and spirits that died across the fractured dimensions, you just thought it was _fair_ to bring me back, and me alone? This was the _fair_ thing to do in your eyes?”

She knows she should be grateful—should. Milla made her peace with death, chose it even when she shook off Ludger’s hand, but that didn’t mean she _wanted_ to die. There were others ( _Elle_ ) that she wanted to live more, that was without doubt, but when it came down to it, Milla still wanted to live, too. A basic, instinctual desire. Even when everything, everyone, made it seem as if that desire was wrong.

But even if she didn’t want it, she’d also made her peace with it. Was she not allowed even that?

“… You’re right. Despite my reasoning, it was ultimately a selfish wish I acted on.” Milla Maxwell looks straight into her eyes, unflinching. “Nevertheless, I wanted you to _live_. I cannot believe it was wrong to think so.”

Of all the things Milla expected her to say, that wasn’t one of them; at the same time, she couldn’t say she was surprised to hear it. Regardless of what she heard ad nauseam about from the others, she could almost feel it: this is what Milla Maxwell would say.

“… You’re not expecting me to say ‘thank you,’ are you?”

The Lord of Spirits laughs. “No, I’m not. This was my own selfish choice, after all.”

“Well, as long you know that.” She taps her finger against her arm, looking up and down, side to side. Is there something else she’s supposed to say? While she’d never admit it out loud, Milla is well aware of the fact that social interaction is something she’s always lacked strength in. It seemed not even death would change that. The Great Spirit in front of her looked content enough with the silence, but it was driving her crazy. “Still, it’s not like you had to have this talk with me to… Bring me back and all, right?”

“Hm? No, I suppose not.”

“So then what does Milla _Maxwell_ , Lord of Spirits, Schism-dispeller, world-uniter, impossible-food-inhaler _really_ want with me?”

The woman across from her, back straight and posture poised, settles a hand on her hip and tilts her head. A smile graces her lips, and even Milla can admit it, at least to herself—her prime self fits the image of a Great Spirit. With her own arms crossed and foot tapping an impatient rhythm, she knows that this is not what—who—she is.

“Is that what they’re calling me down there? I don’t remember my name having ever been so long.”

“Some people do.” Not really. Mostly she remembers Leia or Alvin or _someone_ or other commenting that _their_ Milla loved to eat, shoveled food into her mouth like death itself was after her meal, while she preferred cooking instead, eating her food like any normal person. Back then, it annoyed her to no end. Now, she can see why it might be amusing. Sort of. “It doesn’t matter. Answer the question.”

Behind the Lord of Spirits, she can see Sylph bristling, feels the wind rushing past just slightly faster than before. _It doesn’t matter_ —or so she tells herself. _That_ Sylph serves _that_ Milla, as it should be. Sylph’s glower might match the one she remembers from her childhood, when the Four still guided her as are their roles in serving Maxwell, but it wasn’t the Sylph she once knew. That Sylph, those Four, had left her. Abandoned her, even.

Besides, they were all dead now.

Really, what did it matter?

If Milla Maxwell minds, not a trace of it shows through her calm. “You said you knew you wouldn’t like me. I knew that as well. What I want to know is why.”

She scoffs. “ _Why_? What, do I have to spell it out to you?”

“I’d rather hear it from you, in your own words.” She narrows her eyes. “… Please.”

Stopping her foot, she runs a hand through her hair and sighs. She thinks again, _It doesn’t matter_. Not only has she already lost everything she once might have had, Milla’s already lost her _life_. For all her anger, it was obvious that there was nothing left for her to lose. Not here, where the only people listening were the spirits themselves.

To her credit, Milla Maxwell doesn’t rush for her reply, not even once. There’s only a careful, thoughtful silence, patient as she waits. She wonders if perhaps she’s used to waiting for things here.

“You’re Milla Maxwell, Lord of Spirits. And I’m Milla, the former Maxwell.” The Maxwell who never lived up to her name, who completed her mission but lost it, too. “There, is that obvious enough for you?”

Hand placed on her chin, her prime self nods. “Yes, I see. But in that case, there’s no reason for you to dislike me.”

“Oh yeah?” Her folded arms tighten, and her teeth grind against each other. “And why’s that?”

“Both you and I—neither of us were ever really Maxwell.”

She balks. “What?”

And that’s how she hears it. The plan to lure Exodus, a decoy for the “real” Lord Maxwell sitting high on his chair in a place called the Temporal Crossroads. There was never a human incarnation of the Great Spirit, just a little girl who believed she was. Her stomach drops, her heart pounds, and Milla’s not sure what’s worse—that her entire life was fake from start to finish, or the fact that she’s almost glad the current Lord of Spirits is just as much of a phony as she is. She almost wants to feel relieved, knowing she doesn’t have to live up to any expectations as Maxwell, former or current.

There’s just one difference.

“You’re Maxwell now, though.”

“Yes, I am.” It’s a simple statement of fact; her prime self knows it, and Milla knows it, too. “But that is only because I was given the opportunity to become Maxwell. I’m sure you could as well, if given that same chance.”

Her grip tightens on her arm, and she raises an eyebrow. “And you’re saying you’d give me that chance?”

“You’ve known my answers to all your questions so far. I don’t believe this one would be any different.”

Milla scoffs, the hand on her arm curling into a fist, but she knows the Lord of Spirits is right. She’s known pretty much everything she would say so far in response to her, and whether that speaks to how “similar” they are or just how much she’s heard about the woman from the others, she can’t say. Frankly, she doesn’t even want to. There’s a part of her still that wants to spit out the first nasty, spiteful thing that comes to mind—how there isn’t even a choice, not between life as Maxwell and the utter nonexistence of death—but there’s a bigger part of her that’s just so tired of it. In a way, she could almost argue there being a relief in dying—how she didn’t have to let her anger, her bitterness go, but she didn’t have to feel it either. Still, for all her own resentment, she knows that Milla Maxwell isn’t here to make her suffer. That’s not who she is.

That’s not who either of them are.

Maybe it’s a small comfort.

“So it’s a chance, but what’s the other option? I’m assuming tossing me back into death isn’t one of them.”

“Do I really look as if I’d do that?” Milla Maxwell raises an eyebrow of her own, but she smiles lightly. “But I’ll tell you about that part later. Until then, I’d like it if you took a look around here first.”

She laughs, short but without any real bite. It sounds refreshing, even to her own ears. “I don’t have to answer to you just because you’re the Lord of Spirits here.”

“That’s true, but the fact remains that I won’t answer your next answer until you spend a little more time here.”

Milla looks up and around, at the vast open sky above her and the rolling plains before her. Her heart aches, not from nostalgia nor a feeling of displacement, but something else entirely. It’s neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, familiar nor unfamiliar. Whatever it was, it made her chest tighten. She wasn’t sure she liked it.

Well, it’s not as if she didn’t have the time. She had nothing _but_ time in this place.

“Jerk.”

Her prime self only smiles wider.


End file.
